STEREOTYPIC BEHAVIORS IN BEARS
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Confined bears are deprived of natural stimulus, such as large roaming domains, active foraging and enriched habitats, making them vulnerable to develop stereotypic behaviors. Motivation drives and neuro-pathological imbalance are the causes. Various stereotypic behavior types have been reported, including oral, head and locomotory related behaviors, and pacing are the most commonly seen. Stereotypic behavior level could be monitored using an observation-reporting system or fecal corticoid. Environmental and feeding enrichment are the proposed solutions; however, habituation could be developed. Parallel intermittent and consecutive environmental enrichment and unpredictable feeding schedule would be beneficial. Medication, especially long-term and low-dosage fluoxetine, was found to be effective in alleviating bear stereotypic behaviors.Keywords:
Environmental Enrichment
Stimulus (psychology)
Bears in the wild spend large proportions of time in foraging activities. In zoos their time budgets differ markedly from those of their wild counterparts. Feeding enrichment has been documented to increase foraging behavior and to reduce stereotypies. But in general these procedures have no long‐term effects and result in habituation. As can be expected by the predictions of the optimal foraging theory, foraging activities are restricted as long as the availability of food is predictable. To quantify the effect of spatial unpredictability, three feeding methods have been designed to stimulate functional foraging behavior in captive Malayan sun bears in the long‐term. In order to examine if habituation occurs, the most effective method was tested for 12 consecutive days. Activities of four adult sun bears at the Cologne Zoo were recorded by focal animal recording of foraging behaviors and time sampling of activities for a total of 360 hr. Implementing unpredictability significantly increased the time the bears spent foraging and led to a higher diversity of foraging behaviors. The effects lasted throughout the entire day and no habituation occurred in the course of 12 consecutive days. The study shows how functional species typical behavior in captive Malayan sun bears can be stimulated in the long‐term by simulating natural characteristics of food availability. Zoo Biol. 33:54–62, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals Inc.
Animal Behavior
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The current study examined relational aggression in kindergarten children and how it relates to aspects of their friendships over a 2-month period. Participants were 74 boys and girls (ages 5 and 6). Teacher report and peer nominations assessed relational and physical aggression. Children also rated each child in their class on liking and identified their friends. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that peer nominations of relational aggression were negatively related to Time 1 liking, Time 1 number of mutual friends, and friendship stability even when teacher ratings of physical aggression were controlled. Physical aggression was also significantly related to these variables. Relational aggression (but not physical aggression) significantly predicted declines in the number of mutual friendships and liking two months later.
Peer relations
Sociometry
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Territorial animals often exhibit relatively lower levels of aggression toward familiar territorial neighbors than toward strangers. Habituation to a neighbor or its communication signals has been proposed to account for this reduced aggression between adjacent territorial neighbors. The authors asked whether discrimination between neighbors and strangers by territorial male bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) could result from habituation of the aggressive response to repeated presentations of the acoustic communication signals of a simulated new neighbor calling from an adjacent territory. In 3 field playback experiments, the authors found evidence for 5 response characteristics that operationally define habituation. Moreover, aggressive response decrements persisted between nights of chorusing and were specific to an individually distinct property of male advertisement calls. The authors suggest that reduced aggression between neighboring territorial male bullfrogs could result from long-term, stimulus-specific habituation to the advertisement calls of a new neighbor.
Stimulus (psychology)
Territoriality
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Parenting styles
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Peer acceptance
Peer relations
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HUBzero
Animal-Assisted Therapy
Environmental Enrichment
Captivity
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The social transactions of popular, rejected, neglected, and average first- and third-grade boys were examined during their initial encounters with peers. 23 groups of 5 or 6 boys each were observed for 45-min free-play sessions conducted on 5 consecutive days, with sociometric interviews following each session. Social preference in the play groups correlated significantly with classroom social preference after the third and subsequent play sessions for the third graders, and after the fourth and subsequent sessions for the first graders. The observational coding system distinguished 4 types of aggressive behavior that were hypothesized to relate to peer status in different ways. The first, rough play, was not related to peer status. However, rejected boys at both ages displayed significantly higher rates of angry reactive aggression and instrumental aggression than average boys. The relation between bullying and peer status varied with the age of the child. Popular first graders engaged in more bullying than average first graders, but popular third graders did not differ from average in bullying. Other questions concerned the temporal relation between play group behaviors and social preference scores within the group. Socially interactive behaviors anteceded high preference by peers, and low preference in turn led to social isolation in subsequent sessions.
Sociometric status
Sociometry
Social Isolation
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The benefits to captive animals of environmental enrichment (EE) are widely recognized. Few studies have, however, studied how to maximise the effect of EE. One issue with EE programs seems to be habituation to the enrichment device. To study the effect of habituation to EE, 14 captive sloth bears (Melursus ursinus) were subjected to two different EE treatments. Treatment one presented EE (logs with honey containing holes) for five consecutive days, whereas treatment two presented EE on intermittent days for five days. Intermittent presentations tended to reduce habituation toward the EE. Both consecutive and intermittent presentations significantly reduced stereotypies; however, the consecutive presentations had a longer-lasting effect. Explorative behaviors increased in both treatments, consistent with earlier findings that EE increase levels of natural behaviors. Other behaviors were unaffected by the EE presentations. The results show that intermittent presentation of EE objects may secure the interest of the animals, but continuous access to enrichment may be more efficient in reducing stereotypies in the long run.
Environmental Enrichment
Captivity
Sloth
Stereotypy
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ABSTRACT The effects of instructions to ignore or attend to stimuli on electrodermal habituation were examined in 122 males who were divided between two groups (Ignore and Attend). One third of the subjects in each group were exposed to seventeen 70, 90, or 110 dB tones while they listened to a radio play. The Ignore subjects were exhorted to immerse themselves in the story and forget about the tones. The Attend group was instructed to count the tones and to be certain they all sounded the same. Another group (Neutral, N = 20, exposed to 110dB tones) was told only that they would hear some tones; no story was presented. The Ignore groups were less responsive and habituated faster than the Attend groups. When the Neutral subjects were compared to the others at 110dB, they were found to have response characteristics that were similar to those of the Attend group, indicating that the specific instructions to attend to the stimuli did not augment responding and that differences between the Attend and Ignore groups are more likely due to the effort of the latter to ignore the stimuli. These findings show that instructions can have important effects on electrodermal responsivity.
Orienting response
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